There I had to rest for a few minutes. I was both physically and mentally exhausted from the altitude, the excitement of just having snowboarded my first Himalayan mountain, and the incredulity of walking down a mountain next to a short, bald-headed Buddhist monk, whom I had met the night before in a dream, and surfed today.

As I sat, Master Fwap began to softly sing a Buddhist chant. The sound of his voice soothed me, and after a few minutes, I felt refreshed and relaxed. I stood up, and then Master Fwap and I began walking down the road to Kathmandu together.

Master Fwap was approximately five-feet two-inches tall. He was very thin. He couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds. From my six-foot three-inch vantage point, I had an excellent view of his neatly shaved round head.

His face was gently wrinkled from a lifetime of exposure to bright sunlight and extreme high altitude, but his skin had a healthy and youthful glow.

I guessed that Master Fwap was about 70 years old. His eyes were hazel-colored, although they seemed to change hue according to his mood.

When he smiled, which was quite frequently, he revealed a perfect set of pearly-white teeth.

His saffron-colored monk’s robe looked ancient. In places, its color was uneven and faded from the sun. He wore small boots with high stockings, and walked with a graceful agility.

It was his eyes that kept catching my attention as we walked. They sparkled with an inner power and intelligence, that I had never witnessed in anyone else before.

Walking next to Master Fwap, I had the haunting feeling that I had always known him.

He said, “I sensed that we would be bumping into each other soon, although I must admit, I didn’t know that today would be the day. My own master, Fwaz Shastra-Dup, foretold of our meeting, many years ago! If you don’t mind, I will tell you a little bit about myself as we walk. Then tomorrow, if you like, you can come to the temple where I live and visit me.

“It is on the western side of Kathmandu, on the outskirts of town, in the foothills.”

ॐ

Master Fwap had been born in a small village in eastern Tibet. As a child, he had shown an early aptitude for Buddhism, and so, as was the custom in Tibet at the time, on his tenth birthday, his parents admitted him to the local monastery to study Buddhist yoga, and to become a monk.

Master Fwap told me he had spent many happy years growing up in the monastery. The senior monks taught him the Buddhist scriptures, meditation, astrology, and Tibetan medicine, while he practiced Buddhist debate and martial arts with some of the younger monks.

Master Fwap said that although the senior monks were very knowledgeable about meditation and Buddhist yoga, unfortunately, none of them were “enlightened”. At the age of 19, he decided to leave the monastery and search for an enlightened Buddhist master of his own.

Master Fwap explained, “I knew that only a fully enlightened Buddhist master would be able to show me how to attain enlightenment and reach nirvana in this very lifetime.”

The young Master Fwap traveled for many years throughout Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, China, and India, where he met many Buddhist yoga masters, some of whom could perform miracles!

He told me he had met Buddhist masters who could levitate, heal the sick, become invisible at will, fill the night sky with white and colored light, open interdimensional doorways, and do many other incredible things.

He said the unusual powers these masters possessed, that enabled them to perform these miracles, were called “siddhas”.

The masters he had met gained their siddha powers from many years of “chakra” meditation.

I interrupted Master Fwap to ask if he would explain the meaning of chakras.

He told me that chakras are mystical energy centers that exist within the human aura.

Every living being has an aura, a field of psychic energy that surrounds and protects its physical body from negative psychic energies.

He explained that the aura is the body’s “psychic immune system”.

Master Fwap further explained that tremendous occult power resides in a person’s chakras, and the siddha masters draw upon that power during their meditation practices, store it within themselves, and later use it to perform miracles.

Master Fwap said that, from a Buddhist point of view, having siddha powers and being a siddha master was indeed a great yogic accomplishment, but it was not the same as being enlightened.

Enlightened masters can enter into a deep meditative state of emptiness, which he referred to as “samadhi”.

Admitting that I had absolutely no idea what enlightenment was, or why anyone would want to seek it, I asked how he could tell if a Buddhist master was really enlightened in the first place.

Master Fwap responded that, in his opinion, there were two conditions that would indicate whether or not a Buddhist master was truly enlightened.

The first condition was that the master’s aura would turn a beautiful bright golden color when he meditated.

“Do you mean to say that you can actually see golden light surrounding an enlightened master’s body?”

“Oh yes, most definitely. Almost anyone can see the golden light in an enlightened master’s aura, when the master meditates. Unless of course, the person is very blocked up psychically.”

He also said that, at very special moments, you can simultaneously see many colors in a master’s aura, his “rainbow hue”.

The second characteristic of the truly enlightened, according to Master Fwap, is a sense of humor! An enlightened Buddhist master would always have a totally outrageous sense of humor, because life, when viewed through the eyes of enlightenment, was incredibly funny!

This surprised me. I guess I had always imagined somehow that Buddhist masters would be very stoical.

Master Fwap went on to explain that sitting in front of a meditating master is like being in the middle of an energy storm.

He said, “At times, your entire body tingles with ecstasy, as you feel the waves of psychic energy that emanate from the master’s aura touching your own body.”

In all of his travels throughout the Orient, Master Fwap had never encountered a master who fulfilled both of the necessary qualifications for enlightenment.

ॐ

I asked Master Fwap if he had learned how to do any miracles. To be honest, I was much more interested in hearing about the siddha masters and the miracles they performed, than I was in learning about emptiness and enlightenment.

But Master Fwap said that spiritual knowledge, which he called “enlightened awareness”, is of much greater importance than the ability to perform a few miracles.

He then told me, “Spiritual knowledge is the experience of enlightenment, and requires an understanding of the innermost workings of the enlightenment cycle. Spiritual knowledge is the awareness of the eternal side of things, the eternal side of ourselves, of others, and of the worlds that exist both within and outside of us.

“The attainment of enlightenment makes you happy forever! It frees you from the mental and emotional pains that unenlightened human beings experience everyday. The only reality that exists for most people is the world that greets their physical eyes and other senses everyday.”

“The world that you see around you appears to be physical. It is filled with mountains, snow, plants, animals, and people. It is ruled by time, and the laws that govern matter and energy. It is a world in which we experience pleasure and pain, loss and gain, birth and death, happiness and sorrow.

“Naturally, since most people are only aware of their physical nature, and of the physical side of their lives, their happiness is extremely limited. When their physical lives are pleasant, they will usually be happy for a short while. But when events don’t turn out as they had hoped, most often they experience a great deal of sorrow, unhappiness, and pain. As I’m sure you know by now, most people aren’t really very happy.

“Beyond their surface appearances—the smiles that they wear for the rest of the world to look at—most people are soul-sick. The vast majority of people who populate our planet live lives of quiet desperation, that are all too often quite harsh and painful. Lives in which events and circumstances usually don’t turn out the way they had hoped or planned.

“Most human beings are completely out of touch with their spiritual nature, and with the inner dimensions that exist within themselves. They don’t realize each person has a soul, an inner core of light and intelligence as vast as the ten thousand worlds, whose true nature is emptiness, ecstasy, and happiness.”

At that point I had to interrupt. “But Master Fwap, lots of people know they have a soul. They teach people about that in church.”

“Yes, some people do know, but that doesn’t mean they have personally experienced their own soul, or know how to get to it and bring its power, beauty, happiness, and enlightenment into daily life.”

“Human beings are soul-sick because they are cut off from the ecstasy of creation. Enlightenment, which is the pure experience of the soul’s light, is not simply an intellectual understanding one gains about living.”

“It is a direct and powerful entrance into, and experience of, the most ancient, knowledgeable, and eternal part of ourselves.

“We are luminous beings. Beneath our transient physical body, we are made of intelligent light. One’s own body of light, which I refer to as the soul, is the most real part of one’s self because it lives forever.

“It doesn’t die and decay along with the physical body after death. At the end of each of our lifetimes, it transmigrates, through the process of reincarnation, into a new body that is just in the process of being born.

“Then the soul begins the cycle of living, all over again, in a new incarnation. Beyond this world, the world we experience each day with our minds and our senses, are countless other worlds and dimensions.

“In deep meditation, when your thoughts have become silent, and your emotions are calm and at peace, you can travel into and experience the inner worlds and dimensions of light and perfection, and even experience nirvana itself.”

Master Fwap became silent. Talking about enlightenment and nirvana seemed to have transported him to another plane. Walking next to him, I had the peculiar feeling that he was not entirely in his body. He seemed to have gone far away, to a very private place that I couldn’t quite see or reach.

After several minutes, he began to speak again.

“The world that human beings have made for themselves is rampant with poverty, disease, famine, and death. It is filled with war, and war’s alarms.

“Even when people manage, through luck, or through effort, to attain everything in life that they desire, their happiness is usually shallow and short-lived.

“Most successful people are surprised that the attainment of their goals doesn’t necessarily bring them the happiness they assumed would accompany their successes.

“And even the lucky ones, who do manage to become happy by attaining their goals, live each day with the constant fear of losing whatever it is they may have gained.

“Even the rich aren’t often happy. Their wealth is at best only a temporary distraction. It doesn’t make them immune to emotional and mental suffering, or to disease and death.

“The rich often lead spiritually impoverished lives. Time holds the final claim check for everything we gain or attain in this lifetime.

“All of our possessions, along with the people and feelings we love, are at best, only loaned to us for a very short time by eternity.

“Unless you have gained the happiness and ecstasy that comes from meditation, the inevitable destruction of everything that you have loved and worked for, will cause you to be very sad and lonely during the final days of your life here on this earth.”

“But Master Fwap, how can enlightenment change any of that? Just because you’re enlightened doesn’t mean you aren’t going to die, or that you will be protected from bad experiences in life, does it?”

“No, enlightenment won’t enable you to live forever in your current physical body, nor will it prevent all physical misfortunes from befalling you.”

“Then what good is it?”

Master Fwap responded with a broad smile.

“Enlightenment makes you happy! It is the experience of ecstasy beyond anything you can possibly imagine. Knowledge of the enlightenment cycle, of the ways that the inner dimensions and nirvana work, give you an entirely new perspective on everything.

“It lifts you far above the transient sorrows, pain, pleasures and joys, that the unenlightened masses experience every day of their lives.”

MASTER FWAP EXPLAINS ENLIGHTENMENT

It was getting colder, and so far, no cars or trucks had passed us. After walking down the road for a few more minutes, I broke the silence that had settled in between us.

I asked Master Fwap if he could give me a brief definition of enlightenment. He laughed so hard that his whole body shook. Then, to the best of my recollection, this is what he said.

“Enlightenment is the complete awareness of life, without any mental modifications. It is the experience of everything, every dimensional plane, world, and reality. It occurs when your mind merges with nirvana, with what we Tibetans call the “dharma kaya”, the clear light of reality, which is the highest plane of transcendental wisdom and perfect understanding.

“Beyond this world, and all other worlds, there is an all-perfect light. It is pure intelligence, ecstasy, peace, and happiness. It is the light that shines beyond darkness, time, space, and dimensionality.

“In that all-perfect light, there is no pain, suffering, or limitation of any kind.”

Then Master Fwap resumed his narrative about searching for an enlightened master of his own, whom he finally met on the afternoon of his twenty-ninth birthday.

His story was interrupted when some mountain climbers picked us up, and gave us a ride back to Kathmandu in an old Army truck.

Before we parted that day, Master Fwap gave me directions to the temple where he lived.

He suggested that I visit him the next day around noon. I didn’t know what to say to him. I had come to Nepal to surf the Himalayas, not to spend my time talking about enlightenment with a Buddhist monk.

I thanked him very much for his invitation, but in the back of my mind, I knew I wouldn’t take him up on his offer.